I am a Senior Political Contributor at Forbes and the official 'token lefty,' as the title of the page suggests. However, writing from the 'left of center' should not be confused with writing for the left as I often annoy progressives just as much as I upset conservative thinkers. In addition to the pages of Forbes.com, you can find me every Saturday morning on your TV arguing with my more conservative colleagues on "Forbes on Fox" on the Fox News Network and at various other times during the week serving as a liberal talking head on other Fox News and Fox Business Network shows. I also serve as a Democratic strategist with Mercury Public Affairs.

Immigration Reform The End Of The Line For GOP-Tea Party Alliance?

As Republican elected officials—hoping to save their political party from going the way of the dinosaur—race to grab as much credit as possible for a newly minted immigration reform effort designed to create a pathway to citizenship for some 11 million people illegally in the United States, the moment of truth for the GOP-Tea Party alliance may now be at hand.

And make no mistake…it’s going to get ugly.

While the immigration plan proposed on Monday by a bipartisan panel of eight U.S. Senators would create what the group is calling a “tough but fair path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants currently living in the United States that is contingent upon securing our borders and tracking whether legal immigrants have left the country when required”, it seems unlikely that Tea Party backed Members in the House of Representatives can support any such plan without being viewed as having sold out the most basic of Tea Party principles. As a result, any action in the Senate to approve such a reform effort is likely to kick off an inter-party war in the House that will make the battles inside the GOP caucus over the fiscal cliff, debt ceiling and tax increases for the 1 percent appear, by comparison, to be a walk in the park on Sunday.

The problem is as simple as it is glaring.

A willingness on the part of Tea Party supported elected officials to abide a policy that could lead to 11 million illegals achieving American citizenship or green card status would be seen as the ultimate betrayal of the principles that give the Tea Party movement its strength—not to mention its financial support. Thus, a Tea Party backed politician who votes for any immigration reform bill will be seen to have sold out the movement in favor of the preservation of the Republican Party— an action that would be anathema to many loyal Tea Partiers.

“Another reason why the Tea Party will shift its focus to immigration now is that – with this year’s election now over – many of those in “traditional” Republican circles who had seen the Tea Party as a helpful parallel force for their goals are now out of active involvement. As such, the Tea Party’s own grassroots main issues – illegal aliens, taxes, Obamacare, and bailouts – are what will matter in the movement, not the Republican Party’s goals.”

The issue also presents a political ‘Sophie’s Choice’ for members of the GOP Congressional caucus who come to Washington without the strong backing of the Tea Party and choose not to overtly identify with the group. Despite their non-reliance on espousing Tea Party principles in their rhetoric and Congressional voting records, these elected officials will, nevertheless, be forced to choose between continuing a policy that has alienated the Hispanic community (fast becoming the most important voting block in the nation as proven by the 2012 presidential race) and will lead to political irrelevancy for their party, or get behind the GOP survival effort and face the inevitable electoral nightmare for Republican elected officials everywhere—a Tea Party backed primary challenge.

Talk about a Catch-22 with no way out.

While the Republican members of the group of eight—including Senators Marco Rubio of Florida, John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Jeff Flake of Arizona—have sought to appease the most extreme wing of their party by including language that would prevent much in the way of forward movement for illegal immigrants until a committee to be formed of Southwestern state leaders first approve the satisfactory completion of new efforts to secure the border, it is highly unlikely that this language contained in the bipartisan framework will pass muster with enough Senate Democrats to allow such a provision to make it into a final Senate bill.

After all, it is these very Southwestern elected officials—including Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona—who have made a career out of doing everything in their power to block illegal immigration and, as a result, are likely to never give the “thumbs up” that would be required to allow the process of legalizing immigrants to begin.

This means that any bill to make it out of the Senate would likely create a less restrictive opportunity for legalization, putting increased pressure of those House Republicans who want to vote for the legislation in the effort to please Hispanics and preserve their political party’s future.

At the end of what will surely be a hard-fought process, the odds are that the nation will get some sort of new immigration policy that will allow both political parties to claim a measure of credit. But the odds are equally good that the inevitable battle supreme that will play out inside the House Republican caucus will drive the final wedge between mainstream Congressional Republicans and their Tea Party flank—splitting off the extremist from the GOP caucus once and for all.

You can read the full text of the “Bipartisan Framework For Comprehensive Immigration Reform” here.

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Something cannot be both a Sophie’s Choice and a Catch-22. A Sophie’s Choice is a forced decision in which all options have equally negative outcomes. In the book and movie by the name, the choice faced by the title character Sophie is, upon her arrival at the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz, she was forced to choose which one of her two children would be gassed and which would proceed to the labor camp. To avoid having both children killed, she chose to have her son sent to the children’s camp and her daughter be sent to her death in Crematorium Two.

A Catch-22, on the other hand, is a paradoxical situation in which an individual cannot or is incapable of avoiding a problem because of contradictory constraints or rules. In the movie and Joseph Heller novel of the name, Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier, can get out of the dangerous bombing runs by being crazy enough to go on them. However, if he tries to point out the danger of going on them, then he is sane and must go on them. Thus, he can only avoid the runs by being crazy, but the craziness would prevent him from not wanting to go, whereas if he is sane enough to be aware of the dangers and not want to go, then he must go. Thus, a Catch-22 is not necessarily a deliberate choice amongst alternatives, as with a Sophie’s choice, but a situation where attempting to make a choice will deprive one of the choice.

Thus, I would characterize the problem of the Congress members as a Sophie’s choice, as they must choose between the preservation of the Republican Party by voting for immigration reform, but then possibly losing their position *or* maintaining the support of the position by supporting the Tea Party, but likely dooming their party it permanent minority status and irrelevancy. If the matter had been a Catch-22, the attempt to save the party would have immediately precluded their ability to do so, not provide a negative consequence down the road nor brought about a change in their status.

Delusional. You lefties really are psychotic. There is not going to be any splitting off and marginalizing of the Tea Party. The Tea Party is winning. It continues assimilating the Republican Party, removing RINOs and installing more reliables on pace. 2012 demonstrated that beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt. The sooner you realize this and stop fantasizing about what cannot be, you will be able to come to an acceptance of the reality that over the long term, your crazy and evil movement simply cannot survive. Statism is evil, impractical, and driven by envy, and you always knew it.

It is no use poll-mongering. Most Americans simply do not care about any given issue, even if their exact opinions were captured by the polls, which they never are. But the Tea Party does care. And the Tea Party will always be there. That’s the reality, and your narratives, no matter how often they are repeated, will not change that.

WOW, that’s histerical… How can you pass up committing on this one Rick? If one can accuse you of being crazy, evil, delusional, psychotic and then use “assimilating” in reference to the party they support taking over… I think someone is delusional here… Ok so after writing that I guess I can see why you didn’t reply. :)

Rick, Not to drag you off topic, but one of my commenters suggested you read my latest piece. http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisconover/2013/01/31/are-republican-bigger-spenders-than-democrats/?commentId=comment_blogAndPostId/blog/comment/2316-413-182

It was hard for me not to agree… :-)

Matt Welch has written about “spending denialists.” I sincerely hope you are not in that camp.